Category: Blueberries

A good take on french toast casserole. We just used skim milk with a little whole milk we had leftover, a loaf of Italian bread that was getting stale and we didn’t have any blueberries …and it was great.

Cinnamon Baked French Toast; Ree Drummond

Butter, for greasing

1 loaf crusty sourdough or French bread

8 whole eggs

2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup whipping (heavy) cream

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

Topping:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

Freshly grated nutmeg

1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces, plus more for serving

Warm pancake syrup, for serving

1 cup fresh blueberries, for serving

For the French toast: Grease the baking pan with butter. Tear the bread into chunks, or cut into cubes, and evenly distribute in the pan. Crack the eggs in a big bowl. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Pour evenly over the bread. Cover the pan tightly and store in the fridge until needed (overnight preferably).

For the topping: Mix the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and some nutmeg in a separate bowl. Stir together using a fork. Add the butter and with a pastry cutter, and mix it all together until the mixture resembles fine pebbles. Store in a re-sealable plastic bag in the fridge.

When you’re ready to bake the casserole, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the casserole from the fridge and sprinkle the topping over the top. Bake for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding texture or for 1 hour or more for a firmer, crisper texture.

Scoop out individual portions. Top with butter and drizzle with warm pancake syrup and sprinkle with blueberries.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt pan, either with butter or a nonstick spray.* Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk or sift 2 1/2 cups flour (leaving 2 tablespoons back), baking powder and salt together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar and lemon zest until light and impossibly fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Then, with the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in vanilla, briefly. Add 1/3 flour mixture to batter, beating until just combined, followed by half the buttermilk, another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the remaining buttermilk and remaining flour mixture. Scrape down from time to time and don’t mix any more than you need to. In the bowl where you’d mixed your dry ingredients, toss the berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. With a silicon spatula, gently fold the berries into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick and this will seem impossible without squishing the berries a little, but just do your best and remember that squished berries do indeed make for a pretty batter.

Spread cake batter — you might find it easier to plop it in the pan in large spoonfuls, because it’s so thick — in the prepared baking pan and spread the top smooth. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). The cake is done as soon as a tester comes out clean of batter. At 10 minutes before my baking time was up, a tester was totally wet with batter and I was certain it would never be done in the estimated time. 7 minutes later, the same tester was clean as a whistle, so fret not.

Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, before inverting the cake onto a serving platter to cool the rest of the way. Cool completely. Once cool, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice and butter until smooth and very, very thick. (If you’d like it thinner, add more juice, but I like the thick drippiness of it, seen above.) Spread carefully over top of cake, letting it trickle down the sides when and where it wishes. Serve at once or keep it covered at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.* Updated note, due to comments about cake sticking: If you have a nonstick Bundt, just a coat of butter or nonstick spray should do. However, if you have a regular Bundt, not nonstick coated, you’re really going to want to make sure every nook and cranny is well-coated with butter or even shortening (the solidity of both helps them stick to the cake walls), and then dust the inside with flour. Setting your cake pan in the fridge or freezer (to set the coating even further) while you make the cake batter will provide even more insurance. I hope this improves the release rate of the cake!

I’ve made scones a few times using this recipe and it’s a keeper. Light on the inside, crunchy on the outside and quick and easy to make. A bit decadent with the cream but it seems to do the trick.

It’s probably easier to do this with the food processor as the recipe calls for but I like using an old fashioned pastry-cutter-in-thingy-do. It is very satisfying. Plus everyone is still sleeping when I have made these.pouring in the creamet voila

2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl or work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.

3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.

4. Stir in heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.

5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Form scones by either a) pressing the dough into an 8-inch cake pan, then turning the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, cutting the dough into 8 wedges with either a knife or bench scraper (the book’s suggestion) or b) patting the dough onto a lightly floured work surface into a 3/4-inch thick circle, cutting pieces with a biscuit cutter, and pressing remaining scraps back into another piece (what I did) and cutting until dough has been used up. (Be warned if you use this latter method, the scones that are made from the remaining scraps will be much lumpier and less pretty, but taste fine. As in, I understand why they suggested the first method.)

6. Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

This didn’t last long enough to get a good picture of the finished productthe peaches have been great this summerbeautiful colorsall doneHappy Birthday Jack. 21! He always asks for pie instead of cake.

We have made this twice in the past two weeks. Made two pies yesterday for Jack’s birthday that were gone in 15 minutes. Both times I also threw some blueberries in also. I made regular pies instead of the mini pies in the recipe and the strussel topping is y u m m y.

Special equipment: Use a 9″–9 1/2″-diameter glass or metal pie dish. You will need pie weights or dried beans to bake the crust.

Preparation
For crust: Pulse 1 1/4 cups flour, butter, and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal with some pea-size pieces remaining. Drizzle 3 tablespoons ice water over mixture. Pulse until moist clumps form, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if mixture is dry. Transfer dough to a lightly floured work surface. Divide into 4 equal pieces. Working with 1 piece at a time, use the heel of your hand to smear each portion of dough twice in a forward motion to distribute butter. Gather all 4 dough pieces into a ball. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill dough until firm, at least 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Dough can be made up to 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to a 13″ round. Transfer to pie dish, gently pressing dough onto bottom and up sides of dish. Fold overhang under and crimp edges decoratively. Pierce bottom of crust in several places with a fork, then chill until firm, about 30 minutes.
Line a large baking sheet with foil and place on a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 375°F. Line crust with parchment paper or foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until crust is set, about 20 minutes. Carefully remove parchment and pie weights. Bake until crust is pale golden, about 12 minutes longer. Transfer crust to a wire rack; let cool.
Filling and topping: Whisk 2/3 cup sugar, cornstarch, and lemon zest in a large bowl. Add blueberries and lemon juice; toss gently to coat and evenly distribute. Let filling stand, tossing occasionally, until berries release their juices, 20-30 minutes.
Whisk flour, remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, light brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Add melted butter; mix topping with fingertips to blend.
Assembly: Preheat oven to 375°. Spoon blueberry filling into crust, then sprinkle topping over. Bake pie until filling is bubbling and topping is golden, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Cover with foil after 30 minutes if browning too fast.
Let pie cool on a wire rack. DO AHEAD: Can be made 8 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.